


how close we used to fit

by caveman



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Fred Dies, Fred is dead, Gen, george is lost without his twin, george is v sad all the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:09:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4641951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caveman/pseuds/caveman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>fred is gone and george copes (badly)</p>
            </blockquote>





	how close we used to fit

**Author's Note:**

> this is the shittest thing ive ever written dont hurt me im just very sad about fred weasley's untimely death 24/7 and i had to get it out (very unedited but im lazy so sue me)

~~sometimes~~ all the time i see him

 

            In a twisted way, the only person George would wish his pain upon was Fred.

            Since birth, it was Gred and Forge against the world. They suffered their babbling baby years, terrible twos, and brooding teens together without a thought. They had suffered through figuring out what the fuck a mortgage was and had even had their first kiss with the same girl, at a third year venture into spin the firewhiskey. They had always known they’d do everything together, and when the war came, they were prepared to die together.

            Thirty minutes into the funeral George thought about the irony. The hardest thing he’d ever done and the first thing he had done without his other half.

            They’d always hated people calling them halves. They were brothers, best friends, partners in crime, but never halves. They might’ve never been as driven as Percy, as daring as Charlie, as charming as bill, or as brave as Ron, but they were enough (for each other anyway). They weren’t halves, Fred was better at potions and George was better at charms, George liked reading, and even though they were almost the same, Fred always attracted more girls (and the occasional boy).

            George wished he could still resent that. George wished a lot of things these days. He wished he could get out of bed every day and he wished that Bill would stop calling him ‘Champ’ in sympathy. 

            He knew the whole family was hurting, he knew Harry and Hermione bawled their eyes out at the ceremony, he knew that his mom sometimes pretended he was Fred, even just for a moment, and he knew Percy still cried at night when his silencing charms were weaker than usual. He knew all of these things, these facts, but he still felt alone.

            George felt alone, and angry, and frustrated and _so godamned sad_ all the time no matter what he did.

            His chest ached in the morning, when he tried flying again, every time he opened a book, and especially when he forgets for one moment of bliss and agony just to be yanked back into his misery.

            People always say that nice bit about someone never _really_ leaving you because their memories and spirit still live inside you. That’s the thing though, if people were content with just memories there would be no tears and achy holes. If orphans could live off of pensieves, and George could stop covering all the mirrors then the world would be a happier place.

            The whole thing’s bollocks anyway, what people say. He had survived a war won by a teenage boy and Hogwarts, the “safest” place in the world was destroyed, and Dumbledore the “most powerful” wizard was killed and first years saw thestrals wherever they walked.

            The ground they walk was and still is littered with bodies like a graveyard with too small coffins. They all understand, they all lost someone, but George lost something more, he lost hope. If his brother, protector of first years, friend of everyone, the boy who had threatened to hex anyone who came in the vicinity of Ginny after the chamber (and got hexed himself after she had heard) could die in a terrible, horrible war, so terribly and horribly young, then what was the use?

            He needs Fred around so much more now. They had suffered matching bruises from quidditch and the same thoughts when Ron got a badge and _moms never look that proud of us._ He missed everything about Fred, his ability to entertain anyone at a moment’s notice, how perceptive he was to notice when George was in a mood and didn’t want to do all the talking, how they planned prank after prank with the bottomless pit that was Fred’s ideas.

            He never had time for loneliness before. It was always a stream of constant busying things ideasprankswarmomshophelpwarwarWAR, there was never a moment to take a breath a make sure he savored this moment. A pocket of time where his limbs aren’t achy with burden, and he didn’t have to bury friends, and he knew that everyone in his small, tiny world was safe (these were the moments that made him glad to be alive).

            The tight fit used to make him uncomfortable, the too small room, the shared everything, the edges in their brotherhood that never quite lined up. He would resent the way people look at them, never one. He would see his mom’s eyes crinkle in confusion trying to decipher who was who. He would give anything in the world to feel a bit too close and a little too cramped in that dusty room with pieces of their lives scattered about.

            Now it’s too little. There’s never enough reminiscing, or tears, or shreds of his brother to fill the gaps. There’s always gaping holes in his day, his week, his everything. He always made too much tea, had too much room, and left extra space for Fred's doodles in the margins. There was never enough of Fred to make him stop wearing all of his (let’s be honest their) shirts, and rereading their plans over and over. There wasn’t enough of him without Fred and that scared him.

            It gets a little easier to lie every day. It gets easier bit by bit. He can get up most days, but sometimes it hits harder than ever. He’s opening the store for a few hours at a time, and he can finally get dressed and look in the mirror (for a little bit), and sometimes there’s just enough of Angelina to fill his bed. It gets easier when Ron decides to work at the shop, and Hermione drops by just because she’s worried and that stops being annoying (a little anyway).

            It gets a little easier, and sometimes a little harder. When two boys with mischief in their eyes fumble through the shop, never straying too far from each other, laughing about everything and anything remind him a little too much of how it used to be he can’t muster up the courage to smile and think to himself about how cute they are and give them pranking tips. When their whispered plans and boasting voices feel a little too familiar and his chest feels a little too tight, and suddenly it’s as hard as the first night.

            Those night’s he’ll hold Angelina a little tighter, and she won’t ask why because she knows. He’ll whisper in her ear and say he loves her too many times (as if that existed). He won’t be ok, but he takes comfort in the fact that one day he will be, and when he holds his wife, sold and warm, in his arms, he can feel her realness and her unyielding love for him even when he can’t feel that for himself.

            George will tell you the first happy day of his life after Fred was the day his first child was born, but that’s not the truth. The first day he was truly happy was the day he woke up to the sight of Angelina doing her makeup in the mirror and he got out of the warm comfort their bed to embrace the warm comfort of his wife, looked in the mirror, and all he saw was himself staring back in the reflection.


End file.
